The Olde World League

Fenderstat OWL: The Assasination of Santino Marella

When plans go wrong.....

The OWL had received a contract but this one was different, it was from one of their own. The Leaguers, Dunky the pilfering Halfling and Oleg the staunch Kislevite, responded with due call and met a fellow Olde World League mercenary, an eccentric and bothersome Tilean wrestler by the name of Santino Marella in Kemperbad.

Santino had a problem. A few weeks ago he spent a rough night at Three Feathers Inn with fellow Leageuer Mordecai Backwren and to cut a long story short he emerged Judicial Champion of Gravina Maria-Ulrike Von Liebwitz of Ambosstein. Santino said he got the job after her previous judicial champion was murdered and on the same night they unsuccessfully tried to assassinate him too.

Santino said he’d been stalked while out about in the town recently and with his judicial combat in one week he believed they may strike again before the fight. Santino concocted a cunning plan. The Tilean would head down alone to a local rough and tumble inn by the name of Groovin Goblin, pretend to get drunk and walk home alone. Santino believed the assassins would attack him there. The party were to shadow Santino and ambush the ambushers so to speak.

Santino put on his best Tilean style frilly shirt and set off towards the inn, the party soon followed but not before Dunky looted Santino’s unattended belongings as best as he could. The party found Santino a short time later at the inn which was full of no-good types and dockers and Santino stuck out like a sore thumb.

Santino spent the next few hours going through the drinks while the party remained on lookout and identified two potential assassins intent on Santino’s behaviours. After a few more hours and around 12 rounds of hard spirits they realised Santino wasn’t play drunk, he was actual drunk. Apparently Santino forgot his own plan. The loud mouthed Tilean spent most of his time antagonising various thugs and gang members, challenging them to arm wrestling matches and insulting them while Dunky looked on in horror, Oleg was mildly amused.

Oleg retrieved Santino from the gang members table before he got his head kicked in but Santino started insulting him and challenging him to more arm wrestling. Oleg complied but was promptly overpowered by the surprisingly strong Tilean, maybe he was a wrestler after all? Santino then continued to insult Oleg and his religion before Oleg unsuccessfully threatened him. Santino turned his cruel intentions towards Dunky then dramatically stumbled onto the table of a large group of thugs, knocking their drinks all over them.

The eight thugs then proceeded to beat the shit out of Santino and a second group of thugs from another gang jumped in on the fray as their rivals distracted. The party had a good old fashioned bar brawl on their hands. Dunky made his way to the exit to check on the two prospective assassins they had identified earlier and found they were gone.

Oleg waded into the fray, laid a few choice boots into Santino for payback and began to defend himself against encroaching gang members. Santino, sensing the heat was off him took out the legs of one of his assailants and proceeded to put him in the Marella Lock, Santino delighting in his opponents screams as he tried tear out his foe’s shoulder cuff. Oleg fought off the bandits and dragged the drunken and bloody Santino off his victim and out in the street, emptying a slop bucket on him to wake him from his stupor in the process.

Oleg picked the wrestler up over his shoulders and began to head back to Santino’s residence. The big man made his way through the late night streets, spotted a crossbow levelled at Santino , dropped the Tilean and began to draw his weapon but it was too late. Santino found a crossbow bolt in his arm as Oleg returned fire with his longbow.

A second man began to approach Oleg from the front but Dunky stepped forward and raked the assailants mid section with his knife and caused him to drop his weapon. Oleg rushed forward and split the crossbowman in two and Dunky demanded that the second man talk but was interrupted by a scream as a young woman ran off to alert the city watch.

Dunky rushed back to Santino who was in a bad way, eager to get him off the streets before the watch found them and in the process allowing the surviving assassin to escape. Oleg quickly searched his victim and found no evidence of their employer.

The pair performed some rough first aid on Santino and hauled him back to his room at the Bucking Bronco. Oleg went and got a barber surgeon who attended to Santino’s wounds, saying he wouldn’t be able to use his arm properly for at least a fortnight. The Gravina caught wind of the incident and came down the following morning to personally check on the status of her champion. The Gravina quoted the situation as “unsatisfactory” and declared Oleg to be her new judicial champion to compete in mortal combat one week from now.